After the July 4th rain

The grass appears greener and the flowers more magnificent in the country after just a few weeks in Manhattan sans break. My favorite part of the drive up to Lyme, Connecticut, an untouched hamlet on the Connecticut River, is when we get off the highway and drive down the main road… after a few miles, everything darkens. There comes a break in the growth on either side, a stretch of land without homes and human life. I look out the window and see the sky for the first time in, well since the last time I left the city. It is without puncture, dotted with stars, painterly lined with age-old trees in the far distance. Fields of green… When you live in the country or spend every weekend there, you begin to take the small things for granted. It seemed that each characteristic was magnified this past weekend, and I soaked up each and every one: old water wells edging the front lawn of an old clapboard house, cows eating grass on the side of the road, stone slabs as a rustic pathway to a barn, and that blissful quiet that comes at night. Not a sound to be heard until the birds start their conversation again in the morning. I took a few photos of the property in-between visits to the local farm stands, baking and cooking time in the kitchen, and catching up on my reading on the patio. Summertime and the livin’ is…

Morning

At the farm

At the farm

C’est parfait. Morning market trip: Connecticut strawberries, scones that are still warm, and a bit of fromage.

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Local fruit.

Morning at the farm

Blooms

Ashlawn Farm Coffee

Saturday morning outside Ashlawn Farm

Patriotic berries at Scott’s Farmstand

‘Live Happley’ at Scott’s Farm Store

At Scott’s Farm Store

Coffee and goats. And a poodle.

Clematis

Wild. At the end of Ely’s Ferry.

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White hydrangeas.

Evening light over the barn.